15 November 2017

The 2018 Rodger Doxsey Travel Prize Results Are In!

Gina Brissenden American Astronomical Society (AAS)

The Rodger Doxsey Travel Prize — established through the support of his father, John Doxsey, and other friends, family, and colleagues — provides graduate students and recent PhD recipients/postdocs within one year of receiving or receipt of their PhD a monetary prize to enable the oral presentation of their dissertation research at a winter meeting of the AAS. The first awards were made for the 217th AAS meeting in Seattle, Washington, in January 2011.

We received 136 oral dissertation abstracts for the 231st AAS meeting in Washington, DC, in January 2018, and nearly 70% (92) of them were entered into the 2018 Rodger Doxsey Travel Prize competition. Choosing only a small number of these to win the prize from among so many worthy entrants was not easy.

In all, there were 10 Doxsey 2018 prize winners and 5 honorable mentions. All will receive complimentary registration for the Washington, DC, meeting. The prize winners also will receive a modest stipend to help cover their travel expenses. Prize winners and honorable mentions came from a diverse group of institutions and geographical locations.

Following are the 2018 Doxsey prize winners and honorable mentions — please tell them congratulations if you see them at the meeting!

Winners (PhD Institution)
  • William Armentrout (West Virginia University)
  • Andrew Burkhardt (University of Virginia)
  • Philip Cowperthwaite (Harvard University)
  • Erin Cox (University of Illinois)
  • Charlotte Mason (University of California, Los Angeles)
  • Christopher Moore (University of Colorado, Boulder)
  • Sarah Pearson (University of Colorado, Boulder)
  • Ryan Sanders (University of California, Los Angeles)
  • Amit Vishwas (Cornell University)
  • Jacob White (University of British Columbia)
Honorable Mentions (PhD Institution)
  • Xinnan Du (University of California, Los Angeles)
  • Mackenzie Jones (Dartmouth College)
  • Wenli Mo (University of Florida)
  • Abhijith Rajan (Arizona State University)
  • Maria Tiongco (Indiana University)
Much gratitude goes out to this year’s volunteer Doxsey prize Judges for their earnest efforts:
  • Jake Noel-Storr (Chair; InsightSTEM)
  • Debbie Elmegreen (Vassar College)
  • Nimish Hathi (Space Telescope Science Institute)
  • Chris Lintott (University of Oxford)
  • Dara Norman (National Optical Astronomy Observatory)